MasukThe weekend after our first night together blurred into a haze of skin and heat. We barely left his bedroom. Food was delivered to the door; clothes were optional. He fucked me slow in the morning light, fast against the window at dusk, deep and filthy on the rug in front of the fireplace until we were both too spent to move.But by Monday, something shifted. The raw urgency settled into something darker, more deliberate. Alex had always been controlled—every suit perfect, every word measured. Now that control turned inward, focused on me. On us. On how far he could push before I broke open for him.It started small.He came home from the office later than usual, tie already loosened, eyes sharp. I was on the couch in one of his dress shirts again—nothing underneath—reading. He didn’t speak at first. Just stood in the doorway, watching me.“Up,” he said finally.I closed the book, stood. He crooked a finger. I walked to him.He took my wrist, turned my hand palm-up, and traced a slow
The days after the office incident were a slow burn. We moved around each other like magnets fighting polarity—close enough to feel the pull, far enough to keep from snapping together. He buried himself in work. I buried myself in pretending I wasn’t soaked every time he walked into a room.But the house was too quiet, the air too thick. Something had to give.It gave on a Thursday night.I’d been out with friends—drinks, dancing, too many shots of tequila that left me loose and buzzing. I came home just after midnight, heels in hand, dress clinging to my skin from the summer heat. The house was dark except for the low light in the kitchen. Alex was there, leaning against the island in gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, drinking water from a bottle. His hair was messed up like he’d been running his hands through it. He looked up when I stumbled in, eyes sharpening.“You’re late,” he said. Not angry. Just low. Rough.“Curfew, Dad?” I teased, kicking the door shut behind me. The word
I never thought I’d end up here, living under the same roof as my stepdad, Alexander Voss—everyone just calls him Alex. My mom married him when I was nineteen, right before she took that overseas job with the NGO that keeps her gone for months at a time. Alex is forty-four, tall, broad-shouldered, with that kind of quiet intensity that makes rooms feel smaller when he walks in. He’s a private wealth manager, the kind who handles old money and new tech fortunes, always in tailored suits that fit him like they were sewn onto his body that morning.I’m twenty-two now, home from grad school for the summer because rent in the city is brutal and my internship barely covers coffee. The house is huge, modern, all glass and steel overlooking the bay. Mom’s barely been back since the wedding, so it’s mostly just the two of us rattling around in it. At first it was awkward—polite nods in the hallway, separate meals, separate lives. Then it shifted. Slowly. Like the way heat builds in a room you
I woke up alone, sunlight slicing through the blinds like punishment. My body felt like it had been through a war: thighs sticky, pussy and ass throbbing with a deep, delicious ache, skin littered with fresh bite marks and bruises shaped like claws. The sheets smelled of smoke, sex, and that inescapable pomegranate tang. For a solid minute I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself it was all erotic nightmares brought on by vodka and desperation. “You’re losing it, Annabel,” I muttered, voice hoarse from screaming. “Hot hallucinations. That’s all.” I dragged myself to the shower, scrubbed hard, dressed in the most professional thing I owned left: a white blouse that hugged my tits a little too well, black pencil skirt, heels. I had to do something adult today. Unemployment office. Pick up forms. Pretend I still had a life. As I locked the apartment door, something snapped around my throat: warm, thin, alive. Like a collar made of heated silk, invisible but
I woke up tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, sunlight stabbing through the curtains like accusatory fingers. My head throbbed with the remnants of last night’s vodka binge, and my body ached in places I didn’t remember hurting. I blinked at the ceiling, piecing together fragments of memory—screaming at the universe, daring the Devil, then… hallucinations of horns, tails, and endless, mind-shattering orgasms. I burst out laughing, the sound hoarse and ragged. “Oh my God, Annabel, you idiot,” I muttered to myself, sitting up and rubbing my temples. “Can’t believe I was daydreaming that shit. Drunk off my ass, fantasizing about the Devil eating me out. Pathetic.” The room looked normal—cluttered, quiet, no signs of demonic visitation. Just a hangover and a sticky mess between my thighs that I chalked up to some wild, booze-fueled self-love session I didn’t fully remember. I swung my legs off the bed, wincing at the soreness in my muscles, and padded to the bathroom. The mirror showed a wr
I slammed the door to my shitty one-bedroom apartment so hard the walls trembled, the cheap lock rattling like it might give up and die right there. My boss’s smug voice still clawed at my brain: “You’re done, Annabel. Pack your shit and get out.” Six goddamn years. Weekends sacrificed, overtime swallowed like bitter pills, ass-kissing every higher-up just to keep my head above water. And for what? So some nepotism-fueled prick, fresh out of daddy’s wallet, could steal my desk? My life wasn’t just crumbling—it was being pulverized into dust. Rent due in five days. Savings? Drained dry by Mom’s endless chemo bills. Friends? They’d bailed the second the going got tough, leaving me twenty-eight, isolated, and utterly fucked. I kicked off my heels, letting them skid across the stained carpet, and yanked my blazer off, tossing it onto the floor like garbage. Straight to the cupboard above the fridge for the half-empty bottle of cheap vodka—my only reliable companion tonight. No glass, no







